Escort Recruiting Mega Style

Forget About Pimps! Networks Like Lifetime and Hollywood Movies Recruit Escorts Into the Profession. And They Do It a Division At a Time!

We read, hear and watch a lot of news about traffickers who lure girls into the escort profession. Maybe it’s true…and maybe it’s fiction. But I gained a little insight this afternoon that might really turn the mainstream on its ear.

I was on the phone with an old buddy yesterday — an independently-operating escort who calls herself Candy — when somehow the conversation turned to that old rite of passage thing (the usual sexual abuse mythology which is generally true)…and then to how she was lured into the profession in the first place. And you might find the seminal recruitment tool sublimely enlightening.

No, it wasn’t a big, bad pimp driving a $100,000 Benz — or a foreign broker who “turned her out.” It was a movie on THE LIFETIME CHANNEL that did the job! Yup! The girl was just 14 years old when one night she watched “THE MAYFLOWER MADAM” (the story of Sydney Biddle Barrows) on the “chick channel” — and there is where she found her calling!

Now Candy is no dumbbell — at least academically speaking. En route to her destiny, the Sweet One enrolled in UCLA on scholarship. But once out in the world on her own, the lure of that fantasy so groomed by that movie she’d seen just a few years back, beckoned. And so she dropped out within weeks to pursue her particular dream — one of making the big bucks in the escort game. And sure enough at just 18 years of age, Candy was living in her own cozy apartment, shopping till she dropped, and earning 900 bucks a day to pay the way!

This I find fascinating. While law enforcement pursues any number of facilitators and traffickers whom they think are the culprits, a freakin’ cable channel just might be doing more to glamorize the escort world and recruit young girls into the profession than the people they’re spending all that money to track!

And what about “PRETTY WOMAN” the movie? How many women decided to give it a go based on that fucking fairy tale? I mean…come on! Who wouldn’t want to marry a handsome trillionaire?? Put me in a wig and sign me up! Ya think maybe a few girls entered the rank and file based on that fairy tale?

But that’s not all of it! The media aids and abets the process in less obvious and more workaday ways. New York City’s most notorious madam runs three separate places and is in constant need of new faces to titillate her endless list of regular customers. And while a significant percentage come from word of mouth and friends of her current employees, the lion’s share find her via the internet help wanted ads she runs on a daily basis. Yessirree! The boss lady recruits via the Internet — yet another medium attracting young ladies.

While her ads are fairly obvious, others are not. Emma, a beautiful Korean girl, found the business from the help wanted pages of a Korean daily. Worded in such a way as to hoodwink the paper itself so the owner could run the ad in the first place, Emma answered thinking she’d only be giving massages. When she called, the boss asked “You know men, right?” She got the picture right away!

But really…recruitment to the business can happen in any number of much more organic ways. Take Sexxxy Sadie, a college-educated Jewish woman born (by her own admission) with a healthy appetite for carnal fun. She had a job writing insurance policies and one day commuted to a prospective client who as it turned out owned a massage parlor. He liked her…asked her out on a date…and then gently enlightened her. She never worked for him…but shortly thereafter, checked the help wanted ads in the Voice adult section and started work making the big bucks…all of which brings us back to the media as recruiters.

When it comes to The Great American Hoochie Mama, the “hood rats” hit the bricks the old fashioned way. Race or ethnicity notwithstanding (not all hood rats are women of color), these girls tend to get pimped by a smooth-talking player. He could be in the club. Or he could be driving down the boulevard in a tricked out ride. After the initial overture, Homey might run some ads for her if he’s an enterprising individual, or more often than not, will place her with an escort agency where she’ll receive roughly 50% of the money she earns…and then go home to turn her share over to “daddy!”

New York City is chock full of foreign escorts…especially of the Asian variety. How does recruitment work with them? Suzie, a phone girl who’s managed virtually every massage parlor in the Big Apple, reports that recruitment back in the home country starts at what is called a “hostess bar,” a ubiquitous and completely legal enterprise peculiar to their culture.

In an American bistro, a waitress takes your order…slings it on the table…and then presents you with a check. But a Korean hostess bar is different. Often a bunch of businessmen will get their own room in which to drink. Their waitress not only pours their beverages…but sits and chats with them — and might even perform a little karaoke for their entertainment. While nothing illegal or sexual goes on, the leap to massage parlor work from the hostess bar isn’t quite as pronounced as going directly into the fire. And in fact, the hostess bar serves as a sort of minor league training ground. Once working as a waitress, the girl networks with her colleagues and customers and sooner than later discovers other options to make bigger bucks. And so it goes in Korea…and China as well according to Suzie.

Clearly, recruitment tools — be they old school or media-driven — supply workers for a business that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The world’s oldest profession has that moniker for a reason. Its survivability rivals that of a cockroach in a nuclear war! But really…when you think about it…isn’t all the media coverage/glorification of the trade as culpable as any pimp or trafficker? It’s such a powerful recruitment tool! Pimps do it one girl at a time. But Lifetime? Thousands and thousands! Not to mention Hollywood! OMG! Don’t tell me networks and movie companies don’t profit! How much do you think Gary Marshall earned on Pretty Woman?

Of course, the constitution protects people like Gary and networks like The Lifetime Channel. Thus, they get to earn millions without regard for how many mixed up young girls they entice into the business while at the same time, some dude who posts an ad on an adult directory site as a favor to his favorite escort to gain her favor, runs the risk of arrest for so doing…all of which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Nor does the wack-a-mole mentality of law enforcement which seems to target buck privates and not the commissioned officers.

In a perfect world, this would all be legal. But that’s a discussion for another day. I’m not saying that it’s time to censor any of the media in this arena…just that recognizing how escorts are enticed into the business is more complicated than it seems. There are many forces at work (some unrecognized) doing an excellent job…as there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of practitioners despite law enforcement’s best efforts.

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